Former President George W. Bush and his former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice revealed that in the hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks, they briefly believed the U.S. military had shot down United Airlines Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
The two spoke together at an event in Texas titled “A Legacy of Service: America at the 25th Anniversary of 9/11,” held ahead of this week’s 25th anniversary of the attacks. Bush hosted numerous members of his 2001 administration for the gathering.
Rice described the scene from a bunker where officials were coordinating the response, including efforts to ground civilian flights nationwide. She recalled that then-Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta was trying to land planes using notes on a legal pad, while Bush had given an order, relayed through the vice president, that any plane failing to properly identify itself should be shot down.
“General Caine, we thought initially, standing in that bunker, that Flight 93 had been shot down,” Rice said.
Bush responded, “Yeah, I thought it was the same thing.”
Rice said Vice President Dick Cheney spent about 10 minutes trying to get confirmation of what had actually happened, during which time officials believed a civilian aircraft had been shot down.
“And there was this horrible moment where the vice president kept trying to get confirmation as to what had happened. And for about 10 minutes we thought we’d shot down a civilian aircraft. And that always, to me, represented just how hard the decisions were that you had to take under a lot of pressure,” Rice said.
Flight 93 ultimately crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers, killing all 44 people aboard.
As part of the anniversary commemoration, Bush painted 16 works of art meant to reflect on “the courage, sacrifice, and resilience that emerged from one of the most defining moments in American history.” The paintings will be on display at Freedom Hall at the Bush Museum through September.
